Sunday, July 31, 2011

I read your article about some bloggers using their wiles to control the market. One post from justmytwocopper.org sprang to mind.

The post is called enchant gloves gatherer and pattern herbalist leather gloves. Read it Here. After reading the post and being horde, I thought wow! If I could snag that pattern and use my leatherworker to craft it, I would be one of the only horde on my server with the pattern. I don't play Alliance at all, so a cross faction trade is not feasible for me. I posted in trade for a couple weeks with no results, many had never even heard of the pattern, so I regularly checked both my faction and neutral ah for the pattern. Finally! I snagged the pattern and immediately made several pair of these gloves to make back the paltry 400g I paid for them.

My next step was to have a friend make me some gatherer enchants. I had my macro for trade ready advertising a plus 10 herbalism glove, along with plus five mining and skinning. To my dismay I was so caught up in the brilliant scheme I had read about, I didn't realize that it was impossible to put gatherer on the herbalist gloves; the ilvl of the gloves was too low. So gatherer plus herbalist gloves equals impossible. But I did find the rare and elusive enchant gloves advanced herbalism which does work on the herbalist gloves. But even after selling in trade with the enchant, even after enticing taurens with a massive plus 25 herb bonus with my gloves and their racial, I wasn't able to get over 150 gold for the set.

The post also mentions that the glove enchant gatherer is sellable for around 150 gold if there isn't any competition. On my server Eonar, gatherer sells for between 15 and 60 gold on average. So with that post the site went from being a trusted source in my opinion, to something I read and quickly research the posters info and reference it with other sites before I act on it. Of course I probably should have done that anyway : p

Thanks for the interesting post,

R.C.

Thanks R.C. for the response. As I stated in yesterday's post, "Play smart and research your markets independant of what you read on gold blogs." With tools like The Undermine Journal, we can double check references as well as compare various ideas within the most important factor: Our Own Server. Some strategies will work on one server and will fail horribly on another.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

As a blogger in the World of Warcraft gold making scene, most of us have the objective of helping out our readers. With the increase in traffic and growth to a site's reader base comes an increase in responsibility. We as WoW gold bloggers are responsibile for providing honest, accurate, and timely information to our readers. Most of us gold bloggers use our powers for good, while there are some out there that will use their powers for evil.

Some sites actively engage in the art of in-game market manipulation through out of game gold blogging articles. Bogus articles designed for nothing more than to influence market trends on their own server to make their own pockets richer. The bigger you become as a site, the more reach and influence you have as a blogger. Just because a site is bigger or more popular, doesn't make it accurate or honest for that matter. Let's take a look at a completely bogus article written based on lies. Why would someone lie to their reader base? To increase their own profits at the expense of the readers who blindly follow their suggestions and fall prey to the trapped laid by the author.

Blogger Market Manipulation In Action

The Tease

The Tease On Twitter From @Mageshadow

July 25th, 11:00 AM, @Mageshadow of Just My Two Copper send's the above tweet to tease the JMTC readers about the "awesome post showing a way to obtain cheap and easy Greater Planar Essences."

Current Greater Planar Essences price on Mageshadow's server at the time of writing: 23g

July 29th, 8:00 AM, Mageshadow's less than accurate post on Disenchanting auction house items for Greater Planar Essences appears live at Just My Two Copper. Review the garbage post at JMTC by Mageshadow here.

Current Greater Planar Essences price on Mageshadow's server at the time of posting: 9.25g

Within the article at JMTC, Mageshadow states,

"With Greater Planar Essence at 29g/per on my server, I can afford to pay up to 30-35g per item as each item has a chance to give me 2-3 essences."

What? 29g per? Lies...

When he wrote the post GPE was at 23 gold, not 29 gold, and by the time the post went live the price was already down to 9.25 gold. Within hours of the post going live, the price drops down to 6.89 gold each. This is a major difference from the 29 gold per Essence numbers that Mageshadow was fictitiously promoting.

The strategy that Mageshadow reported doesn't even work on his own server, like he reported. He's not seeing 29g Essences on his server. As the day continues and the market becomes even more flooded with Greater Planar Essences hanging out below 7g each almost all day, someone comes along along at 9:00 pm and buys out the aution house and resets the Greater Planar Essences to 29.98 gold each. Hrm...Wonder who that was?

The Undermine Journal also shows that the average price on all servers hovers around 14.5 gold, so the "Awesome post to obtain cheap and easy GPEs" isn't really very awesome. Hell, it isn't even accurate or a viable strategy on many servers according to TUJ data.

So a misrepresented auction house item price was posted to the blog with the most traffic and the blind followers gave it a try before checking the prices on their server's auction house. The fools created a lot of GPEs, flooded the server's market, and then someone snatched up all of the cheap GPEs and relisted them for close to 30 gold each. Market manipulation at it's best. Well played sir, well played.

Learning From This

The moral of the story is to always check if a gold blogger's strategy is going to be viable on your server before jumping all in with your gold investment. Sometimes a certain strategy may not be viable on your World of Warcraft server and other times it may just be a purposefully misleading post designed to lure you into unloading your goods at a less than ideal price. Play smart and research your markets independant of what you read on gold blogs.

Are you being used?

Anyone else seen any other examples of this type of market manipulation by bloggers?

Friday, July 29, 2011

Twitter has become a massive social media marketing tool. While Twitter is only one of the 7 types of social media sites, it has been one of the most explosive in terms of recent growth. I highly suggest signing up and joining Twitter as a Warcraft gold making knowledge seeker. Some of the most recent discussions among the gold bloggers broke first on Twitter. Facebook may be the most popular, but Twitter is much easier and allows for a far more focused discussion.

Reasons I Like Twitter

Bloggers link their posts to Twitter, which allows for easier reading on my phone.

Original ideas often break first on Twitter.

Twitter allows for an easy medium to field direct questions from readers and listeners of Auction House Junkies.

@EUZoxy - Zoxy of Trading With Zoxy - Zoxy runs an awesome feed. Anytime a gold blogger does a post, Zoxy's feed reposts it to all of his followers, so follow @EUZoxy and never miss a twitter blog post.

So there are 9 great bloggers and podcaster Twitter accounts to make your first 9 Twitter follows. From there you can pick and choose and tweek your preferences for you else to follow on Twitter. And remember, regardless of how many follows you yourself have, a tweeting or re-tweeting a blog post always is a big help to the author and the original site.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Crafting profession bags is usually a profitable market to enter into on the WoW auction house and the Otherworldly Bag is no different. The Otherworldly Bag is a 36 slot Enchanting Bag that is crafted by the Tailoring Profession and becomes available to leveling tailors at Tailoring skill level 480. I sell them for around 400 gold each, but TUJ is showing that's on the lower end of what many other servers' WoW auction houses are seeing.

I originally skipped over crafting many of these on my main tailor. She was leveling early in Cataclysm, so she was making the gathering profession bags as opposed to these, since the demand for gathering bags was much higher at the start of Cataclysm. Recently I have leveled my secondary Tailor far enough to be able to craft Dreamcloth for easy skill ups and I made a handful of these Otherworldly Bags on the grind up. As is already known, I don't believe in powerleveling just for speed purposes because it is usually a waste of gold. I stick to a common commodity crafting approach, which the Otherworldly Bags fit right into.

The beauty of these bags is that they are a Cataclysm top end Enchanting bag and they take some old Wrath Enchanting materials to craft. That's right! These are a great way to unload some of those old Wrath Enchanting materials that you may have hidden in your guild bank.

An Otherworldly Bag requires:

9 Bolts of Embersilk Cloth

1 Dream Shard

4 Greater Cosmic Essence

8 Hypnotic Dust

So dust off some of those old Wrath materials and put them to good use: sales on the WoW auction house.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

It is pretty common knowledge that I am a strong proponent for creating 10 characters on your server. By leveling and advancing all 10 of your alts into farmers and profession crafters (and not just banking toons for storage), you can greatly benefit and expand your abilities to make gold. If you need some ideas for what roles your alts can fulfill, be sure to check out my previous series on Ideal Alts for some nice template ideas. Here are some of the major benefits of creating and leveling alt characters in WoW.

If You Understand Different Characters and How They Work, You Will Better Understand What to Sell For These Other Character Types

Creating Specialized Farming Characters For Maximum Efficiency

Tons of Extra Storage Space

Working on Earning Guild Experience With Multiple Characters

A Greater More Broad World of Warcraft Gameplay Experience

Helps Prevent Character Burn-Out

Ability to Have Multiple Personalities and Playstyles

Options to Take Advantage of Each and Every Patch or Game Change That Proves Profitable

Potential to Never Pay a Tip or Crafting Fee Again

Able to Have Multiple Characters With Duplicate Professions For Extra Daily / Weekly Cooldowns

Ability to Play Characters On Both Horde and Alliance Factions

These are just some of the many benefits of creating an army of alts to level and nurture into full fledged independant farmers and crafters. If you only have a character or two, then I strongly suggest you level a new character the next time you get bored with your current roster. Just make sure to think ahead and plan out future alts and compare them with your current roster. You don't want to waste time or gold on a character or their professions, so make sure to plan ahead and leave space for some of those perfect alt combinations for future creation.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

I just stumbled upon this while researching on the web. This is completely crazy. How do you build a $30 million theme park based on the intellectual property rights of Blizzard without paying for the use of the intellectual property? While I think the concept is super cool, stealing content is not. Feeling angry for someone swiping your awesome blog post? How do you think Blizzard feels about this Warcraft and Starcraft inspired theme park?

If you want to check out some of the photos from inside the park, then be sure to head over to shanghaiist.com's photo gallery for views inside both Terrains of Magic (Warcraft World) and Universe of Starship (Starcraft World). The decor and theme is amazing for a global theme park. There are many giant statues of orcs, elves, demons, and other inspired (Stolen) ideas.

My only question is, "Where the hell is Mankrik's wife?"

WTF Is This WoW Theme Park Crap Post?

Before I get slammed with all of the "Where the hell is my daily gold tip?" comments, I wanted to get this post up on the WoW theme park in case others haven't seen it yet. I just stumbled upon this crazy theme park, so I am sharing it in this post. More gold tips will be back tomorrow. Today I am taking a much needed day off from gold-blogging, but I still wanted to share something interesting with my loyal readers. Enjoy!

Monday, July 25, 2011

Heavenly Shards are seeing a major shortage across many World of Warcraft servers right now. The price of a single Heavenly Shard has shot up to around 150 gold each on my server and many servers are seeing similar price increases. There are many factors that have contributed to the increase in prices of Heavenly Shards and other Cataclysm Enchanting materials, like Greater Celestial Essenses.

Why There Is A Heavenly Shard Shortage?

Less Obsidium and Elementium Ores are available on the auction house.

Those ores that are available are highly priced.

Vendor prices of Cataclysm gems have been nerfed.

All 3 of the above factors have led to less players shuffling Cataclysm Ores.

Less shuffling of Ores means less enchanting materials being created.

Patch 4.2 introduced a lot of new gear upgrades for many players, which caused a demand spike for many enchants and Enchanting materials.

The high demand for enchants has dried up a lot of the previous stockpiles of Heavenly Shards.

Together these factors have led to both a shortage of Heavenly Shards as well as a price increase for the ones that are listed on the auction house. The shortage is the direct result of less Heavenly Shards coming into the market combined with the increased demand for Enchants.

The Enchanting Boom

The Enchanting market has exploded since the release of World of Warcraft Patch 4.2. Patch 4.2 brought us the Firelands Daily quests and the new Firelands vendors. Both the quest rewards and the vendor sold items are nice high item level gear rewards, which are not hard to obtain. This has lead to a great increase in the number of players buying Enchants off of the auction house. This increase in Enchanting sales will continue as players unlock the various phases of the Firelands vendors that provide nice enchantable gear, which will be upgrades to many of the casual players. So the nice wave of sales will continue for a while as the player base is still unlocking the various phases of the new Firelands vendors.

Many of the higher end enchants take Heavenly Shards to create. The high end enchants are the ones that have really seen an explosion of sales and with the increased price of Heavenly Shards, we are able to gouge the price of the Enchants as well. The new phased Firelands vendors that are starting to be unlocked offer not only the new recipes, but also offer some nice high item level epic gear for purchase as well. With so many of these new items being such a high item level and seeing immediate use, many players are opting to go with the high end enchants as it may be a while before this new epic gear is replaced. I myself am selling far more of the high end enchants than I originally expected and those great sales are continuing. I expect this increase of sales to continue for a while as it takes a long time to unlock all of the vendors and some players haven't even started unlocking the vendors and obtaining the easy gear upgrades. It's definately a good time to be an enchanter, especially if you have Enchating materials stockpiled from your earlier ore shuffling days.

Combating The Heavenly Shard Price Increase

With the increase prices of Heavenly Shards, comes increased Enchant Scroll crafting costs if you are purchasing your materials off of the auction house. Currently there are 4 main ways to obtain Heavenly Shards.

Crafting items to disenchant for Heavenly Shards.

Converting 3 Small Heavenly Shards into Heavenly Shards

Buying items off the auction house to disenchant into Heavenly Shards.

Running dungeons with an Enchanter and disenchanting gear that drops.

The best ways to obtain your own Heavenly Shards are through Disenchanting. The least expensive craftable item to create and disenchant into a guaranteed Heavenly Shard is the Stormforge Shoulders. Another profitable option is to purchase poorly priced items off of the auction house and Disenchant them yourselves. If you are in a guild with the Bountiful Bags guild perk, then you can make some serious cash Disenchanting items and either selling the Heavenly Shards raw or using them in enchants to sell for even more profit.

I like to search the auction house for gear that has a 100% guaranteed Heavenly Shard from Disenchanting. If you have an add-on that shows what the items will Disenchant into, then it is pretty easy. Just do an auction house search for blue weapons and armor level 80-85 and buy anything that is cheaper than the current Heavenly Shard prices on your WoW server. This is a great strategy for selling Heavenly Shards as the raw materials, if you are unable to make the high end Enchant Scrolls.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Now that players are moving past the initial Firelands Daily quests and have unlocked both the Druids of the Talon and the Shadow Wardens quests, many WoW players are moving onto unlocking the new Firelands vendors with their Marks of the World Tree. Once you have spent the 300 Marks of the World Tree on unlocking both the Druids of the Talon and the Shadow Wardens, you will need 125 more Marks to open each of the next 3 phases. Each complete quest takes the 125 Marks and unlocks 1 new Molten Front vendor that was previously locked behind phasing.

In addition to offering profession recipes and vanity companions and vanity items, these vendors all 3 offer epic gear. Many players will be purchasing these epic gear upgrades as soon as each vendor is unlocked. We want to be able to fully capitalize on this easy to acquire epic gear. Players will unlock these vendors, buy the gear, then go straight to the auction house to enhance their new gear with belt buckles, enchants, gems and other items. Let's take a look at what type of gear is available from these vendors and what we should be selling on the auction house to associate with this gear.

So in total we will be seeing an influx of the following enhanceable items:

4 Relics

1 Caster off-hand

Tank bracers

2 Boots (1 Hunter and 1 Shaman)

3 Belts

3 Gloves (1 Rogue / Hunter, 1 Holy Pally, 1 Cloth Caster)

How To Be Prepared On The AH

You want to be providing the common enchants that are going to be added onto these new easily acquired epic item upgrades as well as be fully stocked on the varous gem cuts as many of these items have gem sockets to fill. One thing I can't stress enough, is providing as many Nightmare's Tear prismatic gems as you can. All of the Relics contain a prismatic socket and a lot of players still think you need to buy a prismatic gem for a prismatic socket. I simply cannot find enough Dragon's Eye's to meet the Nightmare Tear demand, even with them selling for 275-300 gold each. They don't last longer than an hour or so before they are sold out. Stock up on Ebonsteel Belt Buckles if they are still profitable on your server as there are the 3 epic belts available from these vendors also. The scrolls +50 Int to an off-hand could also see a slight increase in sales. Stock up on your standard caster glove enchants and for the Rogue / Hunter glove option don't forget the Wrath Enchant for +20 Agi to gloves. +50 Dodge and +50 Str both to bracers have also been selling like hotcakes with the easy to obtain tanking bracers available from the Firelands vendors. Lavawalker to boots is another big mover right now as I am selling 2-3 a night easy. So take a look at what enchants and enhancements you can create and get to profitting off of all of these vendor bought upgradeable gear.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

A Fire Prism is crafted by Jewelcrafters and is limited to crafting only one per day. The Fire Prism takes 3 of each uncommon gem to craft and is therefore a very expensive Jewelcrafting item to craft. Those gems can be used in more efficient ways to make a profit on the World of Warcraft auction houses in Azeroth. The benefit of crafting the Fire Prism is that it will produce multiple rare gems and a chance at containing a Chimera's Eye. The rare gems contained inside the Fire Prism rarely are worth the value of the uncommon gems being used to create the Fire Prism. Of course, you can get the occasional nice Fire Prism that contains 3 Inferno Rubies and a Chimera's Eye in the 1 Fire Prism, but those are rare occurances.

Epic Gems Speculation

There is much speculation about the introduction of epic gems into the current World of Warcraft player environment. As of right now there is no evidence of anything related to epic gems and the epic gem patterns. Everything is purely speculative at this point in regards to epic gems.

When will epic gems be introduced into WoW?

Will epic gems even be added?

If epic gems are added, where will they come from?

If epic gems are added, who will sell the epic gems recipes?

What will be the required currency for buying the epic gem recipes?

Will Pyrite Ore be prospected into epic gems?

Will Fire Prism have a chance to create epic gems?

Fire Prism To Contain Epic Gems?

Today we are looking at the Fire Prism and speculating on the future of epic gems coming from inside Fire Prisms. I know of at least one follower that has been stockpiling his Fire Prisms unopened in the bank. Currently he has around 50 unopened Fire Prisms stored up. Why? In Wrath of the Lich King, Icy Prism had the ability to create epic wrath gems when opened. Assuming the similar fate for the Cataclsym equivalent, Fire Prisms will probably have a chance to create epic Cataclysm gems when opened.

If epic gem creation is patched and added to Fire Prisms, then the Fire Prism will be a much more profitable item to craft, especially when epic gems are first introduced and the demand is outrageously high. This reader will have a lot of Fire Prisms all ready to be opened with a chance for each Fire Prism to contain epic gems. These epic gems could provide the jump start and early advantage to profitting from the first days of epic gem sales.

I am in agreement that eventually Fire Prisms will have a chance to contain epic gems. Of course this is speculation, but it is based off of the historical change to Icy Prisms. The area that I start to ponder is whether the pre-crafted Fire Prisms will contain the epic gems. When are the contents of the Fire Prism set? Is it when the item is created or are the contents set when the Fire Prism is opened? I don't know for sure, so I haven't been crafting any Fire Prisms myself to store for later. This is an option for consideration, if you like to take risks. At this point I can't say that it is a guaranteed effective strategy, but is an option for you to consider. It could be worth stocking up the unopened Fire Prisms or it could be a waste of materials and bank space. We just don't know yet, but that's what speculation is all about. It's trying to figure out ahead of time what we think will eventually happen with epic gems.

Friday, July 22, 2011

I received a couple of questions via email from a pair of readers here at Cold's Gold Factory. Both questions came on the same day and oddly enough, they are both regarding the same topic: How To Use Inferno Ink these days.

Cold!!! Help!!! I don't know what to do with my Inferno Ink anymore since the Trinkets/Decks aren't worth much. Do i keep making them and hoping for sales? Do I just put them up on the AH? They aren't selling well. I am at a loss. I'm still milling to make glyphs, although to be honest slowly. I'm still mildly intimidated by the glyph market. I'm making money on most everything I do except these darn Inferno Inks. Feel free to make this a post if you like. Love the blog, I'm email subscribed and have it in my reader. Any help you can provide would be awesome. -Fristy

Thanks for writing in Fristy. It seems that Hilsen is having the same dilemna as you regarding Inferno Inks and Darkmoon Decks / Trinkets.

I'm one of those Auction House Junkies fans out there. And since I listen to AHJ I know that you too like to make gold on Fortune Cards.
- On to my question...

I make a ton of Fortune Cards. Before 4.2, I was able to use the Burning Embers for Inferno Inks (and then Darkmoon Cards). Darkmoon Cards don't sell anymore and neither does any other item where I can use Inferno Ink's ... so what's your angle?
- Stock up on Inferno Inks (maybe keep them as Burning Embers?)
- Sell them at a low price? (about 12g each for Inferno Inks on my server this second)

Hope you've had the little thought I seem to miss :) -Hilsen

Inferno Inks and Darkmoon Cards, Decks, Trinkets

The prices have been dropping on Darkmoon Cards and Darkmoon Decks, as well as the respective Trinkets you can collect from the Darkmoon Faire. I myself had stopped making the Darkmoon Cards and Decks a couple of months ago and have been selling off the last of my single Darkmoon Cards to other Scribes and players completing the Darkmoon Deck sets for the trinkets.

What To Do With Inferno Inks Then?

Here is a list of the markets that require Inferno Ink as a crafting component.

New PvP Relics Since Patch 4.2

Leveling Relics

Leveling Off-Hands (Books and Tomes)

Darkmoon Cards and Decks

Runescroll of Fortitude II

Royal Scribe's Satchel (Unlocked from Firelands Invasion Vendors)

So there are not a lot of options overall to utilize your Inferno Inks. The best advice I can give is to stop crafting the Darkmoon cards and start selling off all of your single Darkmoon Cards that you have already crafted. The new PvP relics have been selling decent for me and they each require 5 Inferno Inks, which can help deplete your stock. Another great option is to craft the new Inscription Profession bag, the Royal Scribe's Satchel. You must learn this recipe from the phased and locked vendors that require multiple daily quests to unlock. These are just starting to unlock for a lot of players, so listing some Inferno Inks on the auction house (as singles and stacks of 3) may see some sales to leatherworkers crafting the new Inscription glyph holding bags.

I unloaded a ton of my own Inferno Inks as Runescroll of Fortitude II. I found a player looking for these buff scrolls and he placed a massive order with me and I am free to craft more and send them to him COD. This has been an excellent way to dump my extra Inferno Inks. The Runescrolls sell ok on the auction house, but the sales are sporadic, so have patience when listing. A little barking can go a long way towards getting these sold. Another option is to find another scribe that needs Inferno Inks and offer to trade some of them for Blackfallow Inks or other Inks that they have. Then you can use those inks to continue crafting Glyphs or Mysterious Fortune Cards. There is always a possibility of the introduction of a new item that will require Inferno Inks, but that is a long shot, and I wouldn't want to speculate on that just yet. Even if another item is added, you can always get more Inferno Inks from milling more Cataclysm herbs, so I wouldn't save or stockpile any Inferno Inks (ever) unless an herb shortage starts to occur.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Today is the very first day that you can pre-order Star Wars: The Old Republic. STWOR (Star Wars the Old Republic) is a new MMORPG style online game, which is set to launch on December 31st, 2011. Star Wars has always had a ton of fans, so expect the Star Wars: The Old Republic online game to have a huge following.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is releasing with both a Regular edition and also a Collector's Edition, which includes a ton of goodies only available when you purchase the Star Wars: The Old Republic Collector's Edition, including a whopping 7 bonus digital items.

From the Manufacturer
Explore an age thousands of years before the rise of Darth Vader when war between the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire divides the galaxy. Choose your class from a variety of classic Star Wars roles including Jedi Knight, Bounty Hunter, and Smuggler. Make decisions which define your personal story and determine your path down the light or dark side of the Force. Along the way you will befriend courageous companions who will fight at your side. Together, you will battle enemies in dynamic Star Wars combat, team up with other players to overcome incredible challenges and discover the wonders of the Star Wars galaxy in a fully-featured Massively Multiplayer Online Game.

The Old Republic, players will explore an age thousands of years before the rise of Darth Vader when war between the Old Republic and the Sith Empire divides the galaxy. Players choose to play as Jedi, Sith, or a variety of other classic Star Wars roles, defining their personal story and determining their path down the light or dark side of the Force. Along the way, players will befriend courageous companions who will fight at their side or possibly betray them, based on the players' actions.

Star Wars: The Old Republic Pre-Order Bonus From Amazon

SWTOR Amazon Pre-Order Bonus

﻿

One sexy benefit of pre-ordering your copy of Star Wars: The Old Republic From Amazon.com is their awesome pre-order bonus (as shown in the above image). You get early game access and a color stone to change your weapon effect. Customized lightsaber color? Very nice bonus for ordering from Amazon.

Why Pre-Order SWTOR From Amazon?

Bonus Code For Early Game Entry

Bonus Color Stone For Changing Your Weapon Effect

Free Super Saver Shipping

Lower Price Guarantee

So Get Your Copy of Star Wars: The Old Republic Reserved Today!

If you are a gold maker in WoW, then you will be a credit maker in SWTOR. After you get your pre-order be sure to check out my good buddy Zoxy's newest project on How To Make Credits in SWTOR.

While completing my daily quests for the Shadow Wardens, I stumbled upon an awesome location for farming the Cataclysm cloth tailoring material - Embersilk Cloth. How awesome? So many corpses I couldn't loot them all between respawns awesome! Tell me now! Where? Where?

The Solar Core

This awesome Embersilk Cloth farming spot is located at the solar core within the Widow's Clutch in the Molten Front. The solar core is the target of the Shadow Wardens daily quest Solar Core Destruction. The solar core is located in the Northern area of the Widow's Clutch past the spiders and the rocky outcroppings holding the spiderweb cocoons. It is easy to find the solar core. Just look for the glowing orb surrounded by flame channeling Druids of the Flame (as seen in the above image).

Druids of the Flame

Our Embersilk Cloth farming targets are the Druids of The Flame that surround the solar core. There are 4 Druids of the Flame respawn locations directly around the solar core. These 4 flame channeling Druids of the Flame are packed close together and respawn rather quickly. According to Wowhead, these Druids of the Flame at the Widow's Clutch have almost a 50% chance to drop 1-4 Embersilk Cloth when killed and looted. Rogues are also able to pickpocket for Flame Scarred Junkboxes and Rogue's Draughts as these mobs are considered humanoids. A near 50% drop rate is amazing on it's own, but the drops are stack sizes of 1-4. A tailor farming here would be able to get even more cloth with the Cloth Scavenging bonus from the Tailoring Profession.

Solar Core Destruction

What makes this spot so awesome is not only the awesome drop rates and the quick respawn time, but the Solar Core Destruction quest itself. All you have to do to complete this easy Shadowlands Daily quest is run past all of the druids surrounding the solar core and click on the solar core orb. It takes just a few seconds to finish the action of destroying the core. As soon as you blow up the solar core, you are instantly blasted into the air and you land on top of one of the rocky outcroppings in the Widow's Clutch. This breaks combat with all of the Druids of the Flame that were chasing you on your way to the solar core. You are free to then jump down and return to camp to turn in your Shadow Wards quest and collect your Marks of the World Tree.

Here's the awesome part. Many players already know that they can just aggro any number of druids and run right up to the solar core, destroy it, and then get blasted to safety. When farming for the Embersilk Cloth off of the Druids of the Flame, you can set up camp right near the solar core orb itself. Then you can proceed to kill the 4 channeling Druids of the Flame. As players on the Solar Core Destruction quest coming running up to you, they will have a train of Druids following them that you can quickly attack to get aggro. So you have an ideal farming spot where there are 4 closely packed druids and druids wandering around the perimeter. Combined with all of the free trains of Druid mobs coming at you from the other kiting players and you have an amazingly awesome spot for easy Embersilk Cloth farming.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Right now the prices of both Volatile Fire and Volatile Earth are nice and low. This is a direct result of the increased influx of Volatiles from players completing their Firelands Invasion daily quests. Tons of players getting lots of extra Volatile Earth and Volatile Fire leads to a supply overload and market saturation. As always, market saturation is followed by a drop in prices of the Volatile Fire and Volatile Earth.

Further compounding the increased influx of Volatile Fire and Volatile Earth are the players that are maximizing the Firelands starter quests for extra Volatiles and getting extra Volatiles from Druids of the Talon quests. If you are doing the Firelands Invasion daily quests over and over every day, why not maximize the quests to get the most Volatile raw materials you can each and every day, while completing the daily quests you were going to be doing daily anyway?

How To Profit From Cheap Volatile Earth and Fire

With the drop in prices of both Volatile Fire and Volatile Earth, we can take advantage of the lower production cost of many items. Volatile Fire and Volatile Earth are raw material components in many of the profitable markets. The drop in prices of the raw materials equates to lower production costs. Lower production costs mean either more profits (if you can continue to sell at the same end product selling prices) or an increased ability to battle and undercut in a new market.

This is one of the reason's you won't catch me stockpiling pre-crafted goods. I only craft items prior to listing them on the auction house. I do not mass craft expensive items ahead of time, because you never know when something will change in the World of Warcraft that will lead to a major price drop. Anyone who stockpiled items crafted with Volatile Fire and Volatile Earth prior to the price drop has sunk more gold into the crafting cost of that item. So someone new entering the market has cheaper crafting costs than their pre-crafted sunk costs, which means the new entrant can be more competitive with their pricing.

Below is a listing of some of the profitable markets that include Volatile Earth and Volatile Fire. I would look into these markets on your server and calculate how much profit is to be made. Many of these markets are still enjoying higher prices (probably due to market veterans trying to keep the prices up since they may have sunk costs and are used to a higher production cost) and are prime for moving in as a bottom feeder, undercutting below the lowest priced craftables.

The list doesn't stop here. Especially when looking at Dreamcloth and Hardened Elementium Bars, as these are intermediate crafting materials. Anything else that can be crafted from either of these items, can also be crafted for cheaper with the new lower raw material Volatile costs.

How are you profiting off of the new lower priced Volatile Earth and Volatile Fire? Any new markets or strategies?

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Since the release of World of Warcraft Patch 4.2, the auction house markets for both Volatile Earth and Volatile Fire have been in steady decline. The introduction of the new Firelands Invasion daily quests has created a massive influx of both Volatile Fire and Volatile Earth. Both of these Volatiles are easily obtained during The Firelands Invasion Starting Dailies. The Druids of the Talon daily quests during phase 2 or 3 are an easy source of Volatile Earth, especially for any mining characters.

The daily grind that is required of every character wishing to unlock all of the content and vendors last for around 30 days. This means there will continue to be a constant influx of both Volatile Fire and Volatile Earth as players unlock the new areas and also continue to repeat the quests over and over to complete the new acheivements. Right now is a buyers market for both Volatile Fire and Volatile Earth. The price will be down for a while as some players haven't even started their Firelands Invasion daily quests yet. And many of us still have alt characters that are going to be returning to that same content. Expect the influx of these Volatiles to continue as the vendor race continues.

Did You Stockpile Volatiles?
I hope you didn't stockpile Volatile Fire and Volatile Earth prior to Patch 4.2. It could take a while for the prices to rebound. And I doubt if we will see Volatile Fire reach its over 30g price again this expansion. That is unless Blizzard plays around with some of the drop rates. With the drop in prices of both the Volatile Fire and the Volatile Earth, you may consider adding more Dreamcloth options to your Dreamcloth crafting. Both of the Volatile Earth and Volatile Fire prices are comparable, if not cheaper than Volatile Life currently is on my server. This drop in price is also another reason to make sure to have your Living Elements transmuting Alchemist parked in Uldum where the Volatile Air is guaranteed from the transmute.

Monday, July 18, 2011

You will choose either Druids of The Talon or Shadow Wardens, which will lock you into your second phase of the Firelands Invasion daily quests in the Molten Front. When you unlock the Druids of the Talon quest chains, you are in for a completely different experience than compared to the Shadow Wardens daily quests. While the Shadow Wardens will have you killing Cinderweb Spiders and Druids of the Flame, the Druids of The Talon daily quest hub leads you into the battle against Elementals and the Flamewakers.

The Flamewakers

The Flamewaker minions are considered Humanoids and have a hefty 52% chance to drop 1-4 Embersilk Cloth. The Druids of the Talon Firelands daily quest chain will have you fighting Flamewaker Sentinals, Flamewaker Shaman, and Flamewaker Hunters. All 3 of these Flamewaker mobs can be pickpocketted for a chance at Flame-Scarred Junkboxes. So these would be prime targets for farming Embersilk Cloth, especially if you are a Tailor or a Rogue. The Rogue could benefit from the pickpocket ability and the Flame Scarred Junkboxes. The Tailor would benefit from the Cloth Scavenging Tailoring profession bonus. The underground caves where the quests lead you are an excellent spot for farming Embersilk Cloth. Bonus points for a Tailoring Rogue. The spawn rate is very fast at the current time, so many kills can be piled up quickly. Even if you are just here for the Druids of the Talon daily quests, you can collect a decent amount of Embersilk Cloth.

The Elementals

The Obsidium Punishers are another nice farming option for a Mining character. Maybe one of your Ideal Alts has the Mining gathering profession and is working on his Firelands Invasion daily quests. This is a great spot to farm up some Volatile Earth. Any Obsidium Punisher gives a 15% chance of containing 1-3 Volatile Earths on its corpse. You will fight a bunch of these on your way up the mountain to take the temperatures of the lava pools and kill Firehawks for the Druids of The Talon daily quests.

These Obsidium Punishers are stone Elementals are their corpses can be mined by a Miner. When mined, they have a 9% chance to award 1-3 Volatile Earths and a 5% chance to award 1-7 Elementium Ore. Why are Obsidium Punishers crumbling into Elementium Ore? Even though the Druids of The Talon daily quests may require the killing of 5 Firehawks, they are duds other than for the quest. They drop nothing worthwhile, just grey vendor trash.

Just like the Land of Free Volatile Earth in Mt. Hyjal, this is another area in World of Warcraft where you may just happen upon a ton of corpses from other players completing the Druids of the Talon daily quests. Often times there may be no other miner around and these free corpses will be yours for the taking. Another bonus is that these mobs also count for the Jewelcrafting Daily quest to slay Elementals.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

My good buddy R9sid9nt9vil of Eviscerated.net and his co-host Twizzle of TwizzleTank.blog.com have just launched a brand new podcast titled Rep Grind Radio. This podcast does contain explicit language, so be sure to use headphones if needed and definately don't listen at work. Lol!

The guys have a great show and it is easy to listen to because of the great chemistry between the two hosts. They touch on various WoW topics, but R9sid9nt9vil also goes over some gold making tips and tactics. This is a great show to add to your WoW podcast listening line-up.

Here's a Direct Link to the Rep Grind Radio iTunes Homepage. Currently they have just their first episode out, so be sure to check it out so you can grow with the show. This episode focus on Patch 4.2 and the effects to raiding and gold making.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

One of the common questions I get asked in email is "How do you know what to make to sell on the auction house?" Well that's a great question and there are various strategies in determining what to sell on your server's auction house. Every server is different so a blanket statement like "Sell PvP Plate gear!" or even a focused tip like "Sell Ebonsteel Belt Buckles!" may not be appropriate for your server. It all depends on the prices of raw materials on your server. Everything is server dependant, so the best way I can help explain what to sell is to go over the thought processes or strategies that I use in determining what I sell.

Diversify

Some players are stuck in a single market. This may be a result of having only 1 character or only 1 crafting alt character. Sometimes a lack of playtime (like my recent change in work hours) leads to less posting time and less posting options. I can't stress enough how much easier it is to have the options of playing in every single market, do to properly leveling an army of alts and keeping their professions maxed and DIVERSIFIED. That's right, I said the D word again. Diveristy is not a requirement to make gold, but let me tell you it does make it a lot easier. Diversifying into multiple markets can help you continue to remain profitable on a daily basis. If one of your markets tanks, or some bully comes in and just starts heavy undercutting just for fun, you can quickly move your time and investments into another market. Regardless of how many markets I am in, I have 3 basic ways that I determine what I am going to be selling on the auction house on my World of Warcraft server.

My Three Approaches To Selling On The WoW AH

The 3 approaches I will be discussing are as follows.

What Is Posted Too Low, That I Can Relist At The Right Price?

What Items Are Selling Over My Price Threshold?

What Materials Are Selling For Cheap and What Can I Use Them For?

What Is Posted Too Low, That I Can Relist For Profit?

I am always looking on the auction house for poorly priced items that I can resell for a profit. This is called "Flipping". This is an auction house strategy that differs from the flipping of vendor bought goods. Instead of buying recipes and patterns off of an npc vendor to flip (which is a great way to make gold too), I am searching for higher priced items that are listed too low on the auction house. The big difference here is that we are looking to profit off of player posting mistakes. Using The Undermine Journal Market Notifications is a great way to snag deals on rare patterns. A few of examples come to mind.

I found the Blacksmithing plans for Mithril Shield Spike for 10 gold. I bought the plans, then sold for 300 gold on the auction house.

Recently, I was looking for an enchant for a character of mine. The enchants were 60 gold each, but I found a stack of 6 of the same enchant on the second page of listings for 90 gold. Instead of buying the cheapest 60g enchant for my character, I bought the 6 stack and sold the other 5 for 59g59s59c each. That 90 gold investment got my character the boots enchant plus almost another 300 gold extra profit.

I found 10-15 Enchant Shield Vitality scrolls listed for 8 gold each (must have been from a player leveling Enchanting) , bought them all out, and sold them all for 75 gold each. This scroll is now BiS for any low level twink shield carriers. The cost to craft them is well over 8 gold each so this was easy money.

What Items Are Selling Over My Price Threshold?

I do not follow the Walmart pricing philosophy that many other auctioneers follow. The Walmart-model is based off of selling as many items as possible at the cheapest prices. The sheer volume of sales helps bring in the gist of the profits. I tend to analyze what I am going to sell much differently. In the Walmart pricing model, as long as there is some profit potential, the item gets listed. "A sale is a sale" or "Profit is profit" are a couple of the coined phrases a Walmart type poster would say. As long as a profit can be made, they will post and hope for a massive volume of sales to get the profits. No thanks! If I am not making enough profit for the items to be worth my time, I won't post.

I have a threshold that I want the item's current price to be at or over, before I waste my time crafting the item to sell on the auction house. Only a five gold profit on this cut gem? Next. What are Blacksmithing Rods at? Over my profit threshold? I'll post. If not, I move to another market and check prices. This is where diversity plays a huge role in determining what I will post on the WoW auction house. Without being diversified, I wouldn't have as many crafting and posting options.

Why do I have a price threshold? It is my firm belief that everything needs to have a nice enough profit for that item to be worth putting my time and effort into. I am no Walmart. I want to make nice chunks of profit on each item I sell, because my time is limited and if I can't make a nice enough profit in this market, then I can make it in another market. My time is better spent in the higher profit margin auction house markets.

Another reason I stick to my pricing thresholds is the fact that continually competing at those low price levels does nothing for rebounding the price higher. It only adds to the competition, undercutting, and general tanking of the markets prices for a longer period of time. Another example would be with posting time durations. If the price of your items is lower than ideal, then posting for 48 hours is only going to keep the prices lower for longer. Posting with a shorter duration, gives the item a better chance to rebound. Not posting at all in this situation gives a much better chance for the prices to stabilize back higher. Remember, if the prices are low and you continue to post at that low price, you are keeping the market down. Are you part of the problem or are you part of the solution?

What Materials Are Selling For Cheap and What Can I Use Them For?

A lot of players will focus on the prior method of posting what is selling for a profit or what is selling for enough of a profit to make crafting and posting worthwhile. Another big strategy for profiting on the auction house is identify cheap materials and what can be crafted from those cheap materials. The biggest example is with shuffling ores. If the prices are low enough, we can buy tem items and send them through the ore shuffling process. If you find cheap herbs, then you can shuffle those through the flask, Mysterious Fortune Cards or Fortune Cookies, or potion markets.

I always make a point to search for more than just the raw material resources when using this auction house strategy. You can often find a nice batch of crafted intermediate materials on the auction house for low prices. Sometimes a player will overproduce items while leveling up their WoW professions, then toss them on the auction house just to get some of their investment back. Many times, these items are listed for far less than the cost to craft them. Some examples of intermediate crafting materials and how I have shuffled them into nice profits include the following.

So be sure to try to get out of the same way of thinking about what to sell. There are many options for making gold on the auction house. With a litle digging around and looking at selling prices as well as the prices of raw and intermediate materials, you can surely find some new markets or new ideas for making gold within the World of Warcraft.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Today I would like to take the time and do a little bit of promotion for both Wes and I. If you enjoy reading our sites and listening to The Auction House Junkies gold making podcast, then be sure to catch us around the blog-o-sphere. That's right! My good buddy Wes of cappedbycata.com and I, Cold of Cold's Gold Factory, have both been working on new projects.

Goldgrub's Goblin Academy

Goldgrub's Goblin Academy - The Goldgrub's project for beginning goblins and fresh auctioneers is going very well. We have been putting out some excellent articles and have been adding new writers to the staff. We are still accepting guest post submissions. Writing for the brand new player is harder than you might think. Please stop by and check out my posts on Mondays. Wes's posts are live on Thursdays.

I have signed on as a contributing writer over at TimeWastedTuesday.net. I will be writing there a few times a month if not more. Check out my first article: Twinking: An End To The Carrot Chase. The site is a general MMORPG site and the authors cover various aspects of different online games, not just World of Warcraft.

Dream Emeralds sell horribly on my server. I think the majority of them have been sold to vendors prior to the price drops on gems. When they appear raw and uncut on the auction house, the prices can be pretty low. I have been scooping these cheaply prices Dream Emeralds up because the demand for them is about to explode. Once the new scopes are craftable on your server, you can expect those Dream Emeralds to be much harder to find. So stock up now, while the short-sighted players haven't been planning ahead.

The biggest benefit of racing with my Engineer first is that the biggest money maker (Flintlocke's Woodchucker) requires zero Living Embers and zero Chaos Orbs. All of the other new weapon patterns do require Living Elements Chaos Orbs, which is going to be a major choking point for mass crafting of the new weapons. Even worse is the dreamcloth chokepoint for the bags, since they are still BOP and take a full week to make. Most people would probably pick Blacksmithing first, since there are so many options with the new recipes. I think that as an Engineer, I will have much more profits before the Blacksmith is even able to create a handful of items to sell. Plus Engineering is the least used profession, which helps limit the competition and opens up a better selling opportunity.